


Signs

by legoline



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Sign Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legoline/pseuds/legoline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hunt uncovers a skill Sam didn't know Dean possessed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signs

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the spnflashfic challenge.
> 
> Beta by the stellar unhobbityhobbit.

The crying echoes in the dark room, quiet and choked, like someone’s trying desperately to be still, not make a sound, but doesn’t quite achieve it. Muffled and coming somewhere from the far corner, but the darkness has swamped the room so completely Sam can’t measure exactly how far that would be. Next to him, Dean stumbles into the black and Sam holds out his arm; Dean bumps against it and they both stop, listening.

Basements shouldn’t be allowed to be that dark, without a working light switch or—God forbid—windows. Dean’s jacket rustles and a moment later a cone of pale light fills up the space. Exactly why Dean hasn’t used the flashlight before Sam doesn’t know, but then, with Dean you never know.

The air is thick with dust and Sam rubs his nose when it begins to itch; pity he can’t scratch his throat because the dust and dirt is filling up his lungs and it feels as if he’s going to cough out his insides if they don’t get out of here quickly. The scent of rubble and stone is piercing, made worse by a touch of lavender.

The crying suddenly stops, and then the cone of light hits the little boy in the corner, all huddled up with his face half-hidden behind his arms, clothes brown and gray with dirt. He looks up at them shyly with widened eyes, cried red; from a face stricken with horror and covered in blotches.

“Fuckin’ witches abducting children,” Dean growls and Sam doesn’t say that he agrees because Dean knows anyway.

“It’s okay, we’re here to help you,” Dean says, approaching the boy slowly. The boy stares up at him, and says nothing.

“She’s not going to hurt you anymore,” Dean says and Sam thinks that this is quite an understatement for having staked the witch first only to chop off her hands afterwards and then burning the corpse. It’d been a messy hunt and Sam gets sick just thinking about it, but the witch had been centuries old and very powerful and it’d been the only way to get rid of her. Still, nice of Dean to spare the boy the details.

The boy still looks at Dean with his eyes so wide he might just be from one of those Japanese cartoon series Sam used to watch when they were smaller; he’s shaking and his teeth are clattering.

“It’s okay,” Dean says again, reaching for the boy but the kid just flinches, jerks back like the touch might burn him.

“Did you hear me?” Dean tries again, voice calm and steady without a hint of annoyance; it always amazes Sam just how patient Dean can be with kids. Compared to how easily he’s annoyed by other people when they don’t understand at once, because Dean’s sharper than he admits, quick-minded and sometimes too fast for the ordinary brain, and he gets frustrated when he has to explain things again. Except with kids.

Sam remembers the dream Dean had, pretty Lisa with the picnic telling Dean they would pick up Ben in an hour, and Sam swears that if he could, he would give that to Dean, he would make it happen. For Dean’s sake as much as for Ben’s.

When the boy still doesn’t reply, still stares at Dean like he doesn’t understand, Dean frowns and then suddenly his face brightens with an epiphany, and he makes a quick movement with his hands.

The boy nods, slowly.

Dean moves his hands again, not as quick, more deliberate, sometimes touching his lips with a finger or going to his ears and then, as Sam focuses more on exactly what Dean is doing he realises Dean is signing. That the boy is deaf.

Sam just stares. He had no idea Dean could do that.

“We’re going to help you, okay?” Dean says, one word at a time, and Sam guesses he’s adapting his words to the speed at which he’s signing and the boy nods again, and when Dean holds out his hand, the boy grabs it tentatively.

***

“When the heck did you learn that?” Sam asks later, back at the motel, and Dean shrugs.

“No, seriously, _when_?” It bugs Sam that he didn’t know. It always bugs him when he finds out there’s something he didn’t know about his brother. Maybe because it feels like he spent his entire time growing up with studying Dean, and failed.

Dean sighs, heavily. The sigh of someone who’d rather not talk about this but knows that Sam will keep asking anyway until Dean tells him the full story.

“I did mention that...after Mom’s death, I didn’t feel like talking, right?”

Sam nods and ignores the punch in his gut.

“Truth is...I didn’t feel like talking for almost two years. Until you began babbling, and then I started again. But before, Dad taught me some signs. I guess it was easier for me to, you know, talk to Dad without actually having to say it. It was only basic signs though. Ten or so.”

Sam listens and chills are creeping up his body; Dean never talks about that time after Mom’s death, and Sam’s earliest memory sets in when he was four years old and Pastor Jim set up a paddling pool in his backyard that summer.

“Anyway,” Dean continues, “remember that spring we lived in Wyoming?”

Sam tries to remember—the house or the school but it’s all blurry, and images of the house melt together with fractures of other houses they lived in and in the end, he just gives up, and shakes his head.

“No.”

“I dated a girl. Her name was Jenny, and she was deaf. I learned more of that signing stuff for her. It kinda stuck. I used to be quicker at it, but...I’m getting rusty I guess.”

Dean smiles, a wide grin, and scratches the back of his head. He’s embarrassed, but Sam can’t quite determine why...because he still knows how to sign? Because that makes him a geek? Because he’d always told Sam how he was screwing with these hot perfect easy chicks, while in fact he’d taken the time and made the effort to learn how to communicate with a deaf girl?

Sam had never known about Jenny. It kind of made him wonder how many Jennys there were across the States, all of whom Dean had to leave behind.

“That’s awesome,” Sam says in all honesty.

Dean looks up. “Yeah, well.”

They fall silent and there’s a nervous flicker in Dean’s eyes, like he’s waiting for Sam to ask questions about Jenny and why Dean never told him, and Sam can see that Dean really doesn’t want to talk about it, at least not today.

“No, really,” Sam repeats, and he hopes Dean realises Sam’s not going to press him about Jenny tonight. When Dean smiles, Sam adds, “Can you teach me?”


End file.
